Keep every corporate application moving.

A deactivated DIN cannot be used to sign or file anything on the MCA portal, so every form that needs that director stalls: annual filings, appointments, charge filings, even a resignation. Deactivation is almost always for a missed DIR-3 KYC. Reactivation means filing the KYC with a ₹5,000 late fee, and the DIN goes live again typically within a few working days.

It is due within 180 days of incorporation. Missing it carries a ₹50,000 penalty on the company and ₹1,000 per day on each officer in default, up to ₹1 lakh, and the Registrar has the power to strike the company off on the presumption that it never started business. The filing itself is straightforward — it just needs the subscription money actually credited to the company bank account first.

Choose dormant status if there is a reason to keep the entity alive — a name you want to hold, an asset or IP inside it, or a project you intend to restart. It keeps the CIN and reduces compliance to an annual MSC-3, and can run for up to five consecutive years. Choose strike-off if you have genuinely finished with the entity, since it ends the compliance obligation entirely. Strike-off is irreversible without a Tribunal order, so it is the more serious call.

Not directly. The Registrar will not accept STK-2 while annual filings or INC-20A are outstanding, so the backlog has to be regularised first — including the late fees. This surprises a lot of owners who assumed closing the company would write off the pending compliance. We quote the regularisation and the strike-off separately so you can see the true cost of closing before you commit.

The object clause is one clause inside the memorandum, so changing it is a specific case of an MOA amendment. The memorandum also holds the name clause, the registered-office state clause, the liability clause and the capital clause, and each has its own follow-on form — a name change needs INC-24, a capital change needs SH-7. All of them need a special resolution and MGT-14 within 30 days.

It depends how far you are moving. Within the same city, town or village, a board resolution and INC-22 are enough. To a different city inside the same Registrar jurisdiction you need a special resolution. Moving to a different Registrar jurisdiction or a different state needs Regional Director approval through INC-23, which is a longer process with newspaper publication and creditor notice.

A trademark protects the brand identifiers you trade under — the name, logo or tagline — and is what stops a competitor using a confusingly similar mark. Copyright protects original creative work such as content, artwork and software source code. A design registration protects the visual appearance of a manufactured product. They are not alternatives: a product company often needs a trademark for the brand and a design registration for the article itself.

You get the application number within one to three days and can use the ™ symbol from that point. Registration itself takes 12 to 24 months if nobody objects, moving through examination, publication in the Trade Marks Journal and a four-month opposition window. If an examination report is issued, a reply is needed within 30 days — that is quoted separately because the work involved depends entirely on the objection raised.